Shatter
by Nenalata
Summary: She was in her twenties when anything related to him was torn apart, and she knew that he was hurting more than she was. Fem!Mahariel/M!Mahariel and M!Mahariel/Tamlen love triangle. Mild slash and mild spoilers for Origins.


**A/N: Dragon Age isn't mine; it's BioWare's. Anyway, this is a quick story I wrote for a friend of mine. She has a huge crush on my M!Mahariel character, so I offered to take a character she could make and write a sad love-triangle for them. I'm telling you this to explain that the Fem!Mahariel in the story is NOT the PC Warden; M!Mahariel is. Therefore, Fem!Mahariel's past and family is different.**

Arianna was six the first time she noticed—_really_ noticed—Aeres. He was always with that other blond-and-blue-eyed boy, Tamlen, so she just mushed them both together, as one person. Tamlen-and-Aeres. But on that day, Tamlen had a cold, which meant Aeres was playing alone, and seeing him separate from his best friend drew the little girls' green eyes to look at him. So she did what any curious and outgoing six-year-old girl would do, and that was to plop down next to him and ask him to play. Aeres did what any lonely and shy six-year-old boy would do, and that was to startle and stutter and say okay.

They became friends that day.

Arianna skipped over to her father when it was time for dinner, but noticed that her playmate had wandered over to Ashalle, who everyone knew had never been married. Arianna asked her father about this state of affairs, and Vadimir explained to her about Aeres's parents and their fate. Arianna thought it was the most interesting thing she'd ever heard, and knew that she'd done well by befriending such a unique boy.

The other boy—Tamlen—she didn't like so much. He was too impulsive and reckless and brash and stubborn—and so much like her, though she didn't notice—and always getting Aeres into trouble. The thing was, quick-tempered Aeres always seemed to be perfectly all right with letting Tamlen do whatever he wanted in the ways of bad decisions, rarely raising his voice even when he was _really, really_ mad at the boy. Arianna's feelings of dislike weren't mutual, however, and Tamlen just didn't seem to get the picture whenever Arianna would snap at him to go away.

But because Aeres couldn't pull himself away from Tamlen, and Arianna couldn't pull herself away from Aeres, they began to be lumped together by the rest of the clan. Tamlen-and-Aeres-and-Arianna.

* * *

Arianna was thirteen when she fell in love with Aeres. The object of her affections was outside her aravel with her when this realization struck, receiving archery instruction from Vadimir. Arianna sneaked a peek at him to see how he was doing through her taut bow string and was astonished as she realized her best friend was _handsome_. He'd shot up during puberty and didn't seem to have stopped, though he was already a good head taller than quite a few adult men. He'd lost all his baby fat, which accentuated his sharp cheekbones, and secret-colored blue eyes were set in tan skin, shadowed by a careful tangle of gold hair. Standing in his training armor, posture flawless and face set in concentration, Arianna thought he looked like a messenger from Andruil herself. She looked down at her own coming-in curves and night-black hair curling gently around her porcelain face and knew that she was beautiful, and that she deserved him.

So when she missed her practice mark by a mile due to her concentration while Aeres hit his perfectly, this knowledge cooled her even when Aeres immaturely crowed his delight at besting her.

* * *

Arianna was eighteen when she had her first kiss.

She and Aeres were sitting in a tree together, waiting for Tamlen to get off cleanup duty and join them. They struck up a conversation, as friends occasionally do, and eventually the topic turned to their future vallaslin.

"I want to spend my time worshiping Falon'Din," Arianna told him in a dreamy fashion as she thought of that distant day. "Imagine his bravery and strength at being able to cross both worlds so easily and so often. I admire that strength. Crossing so many obstacles, but doing it all for the sake of the people you love…"

"That doesn't sound like you, lethallan," Aeres said flatly. "I doubt that you want to be blessed by Falon'Din for _bravery _and _strength_. If there's something you don't want to tell me, just say so."

"I never hide things from you," she replied honestly, eyes earnest and bright. Well, she was being _mostly_ honest. "I guess I just…I just want to be able to walk between worlds like that, too; see my mother. My father is incredible, and I love him so much for doing so well by me, but…" Arianna leaned closer, trying to catch Aeres's gaze. For some reason, he wasn't looking at her. "Aeres, don't you ever want to be able to do that? Wouldn't you like to be able to speak with your father? Creators, lethallin, he was Keeper of your clan! Wouldn't you like to learn something? Or your mother—"

"No," he rebuked her sharply, and now that his eyes were fixed on hers they were piercing and angry. "I know all I need to know about my parents. My mother was weak and let love for the dead distract her from all else. My father was strong, and died protecting the living. Besides," he continued, looking at her but not seeing, "if I let the realm of the dead cloud my vision from the realm of life and truth, how am I better than my foolish and love-struck mother? Falon'Din can keep them both where they are."

They sat in bitter silence, Arianna shocked at this sudden outburst. She tried to steer the topic away from less dangerous ground. "Then whom will you choose, lethallin? You remind me of Andruil-" _if only you knew_ "so I hope I'm right in guessing; the way you love your bow, and all."

"No," Aeres said in an absent way, "Tamlen plans to revere Andruil. I've always been in awe of Elgar'nan, though, so…"

"So, what?" Arianna let out a little more angrily than she intended, annoyed that her glorious fantasy was shattered. "Finish a sentence, instead of making some writer's word processor go crazy with red and green lines!"

Now he looked at her, blank and confused. "What?"

"I said to finish your thoughts without making yourself seem hypocritical! You want to shun death, but love the Destroyer?"

"Oh, I thought…" Aeres shook his head. "Never mind. But Elgar'nan isn't just the god of destruction, Arianna," he spoke rapidly, leaning his face closer to hers. "He's the god of fathers, and vengeance...He'd understand, then, my feelings towards humans, and to my own father…"

He was so close. "Aeres, I think you're letting your emotions get in the way of something so sacred."

"But emotions _make_ things sacred," he nearly whispered, "because otherwise the vallaslin would be unimportant. My parents, your father, our traditions…they're the way they are because of emotions!"

"Like love?"

"Love seems to be a part of it," he agreed dryly. And before she could think about it—they were still children by Dalish standards—she pressed her lips to his and closed her eyes, and he made a startled sound and began kissing her back.

A rustle from below broke the two free of their frozen half-second. Tamlen had arrived, as well as Merrill, who didn't seem very pleased that the two of them were so far off the ground and in harm's way.

They joined the pair, and though Arianna was sure it had changed the way Aeres saw her for the better, that stolen kiss was never brought up again. What's an innocent kiss between children?

* * *

Arianna became an adult when she was twenty. As promised, she'd adorned the vallaslin of Falon'Din, and so it was with pride that she showed them off to Tamlen and Aeres the next day. Last one to get them but first to make the attempt, she was sure that her bravery would be noticed by the gods, and that everything—particularly Aeres—would fall into place.

But Aeres and Tamlen merely congratulated her and took her hunting with them. That in itself was something to be proud of, for hunter's apprentices couldn't just take off to the forest with a bow and arrows like that, but she felt just as left out in their group as she'd felt when Tamlen and Aeres would go off hunting together and be forced to leave her alone. Walking on the moss and eyes alert for both predator and prey, Arianna watched the two young men in front of her with mixed unpleasant feelings.

Tamlen, not to be outdone by Arianna's bold attempt, was the first to receive his vallaslin when he was nineteen. The blood-writing of Andruil complimented his features nicely, making the shape of his cheeks and jaw more angular while the forehead mark was decorative and striking and made the bright blue of his eyes stand out. He'd also grown into a fine adult—all three of them had—but Arianna could take her eyes off of Aeres, as usual. That elf had decided to join Tamlen in adulthood but days after—Arianna was shocked and awed that Aeres had just _decided_ and it had happened—and the marks of Elgar'nan nearly blended in with the gold of his skin, smoothly connecting muscles and planes with its vine-like pattern. Not to mention that the twin vertical lines under his lips brought nice attention to his smirking mouth…

That mouth was chattering animatedly, the rest of the matching face completely focused on Tamlen and attention making his eyes _glow_, as if the conversation they were having was important only because Tamlen was _talking_ to him. And the thing that was even worse—the thing that Arianna knew was the only reason why that look was on _Aeres's_ face—was that Tamlen was mirroring him.

They'd always been in their own separate world. It was a world that Arianna had always wanted to visit ever since their first play-date as a threesome. It was like Tamlen-and-Aeres was a superior civilization, and only visited Thedas to raise everyone's spirits just by having their existence acknowledge. Arianna could remember many times when she'd seen them laughing and talking and smiling and, curious, she'd ask what they'd been talking about; immediately the smiles and joy would vanish and be replaced with awkward grins and 'it was nothing'.

For some reason, she'd expected that joining them in adulthood would change all that. Maybe she wouldn't hate Tamlen so much for constantly having Aeres's attention; maybe Aeres wouldn't ignore _her_ so much and _she'd_ have his attention…

Continuing to walk behind them while they enjoyed life, Arianna's thoughts turned darker than they were even now. Maybe this uncertainty and envy and anger wouldn't have been such a big deal if _Merrill_ hadn't gotten involved. Merrill seemed to be set on capturing Aeres's heart as well, only unlike Arianna, she seemed to be succeeding. Sometimes Arianna would catch her beloved pausing in a conversation with the First to caress her cheek, or give her a gift…Merrill obviously appreciated the gestures, but her affection didn't seem to be as _enraptured_ as Arianna's was. Merrill didn't approve of Tamlen-and-Aeres excursions and was constantly berating the latter about it; or she'd want to exchange Keeper facts with him despite the fact that Aeres's _father_ was the magic-talented one and he was long _dead_ and only gave Aeres a ring that he didn't even like to talk about. Arianna bitterly recalled the thousand times she heard Merrill scolding Aeres about something or other, some reckless or impulsive or sarcastic action that she didn't agree with.

Arianna thought maybe it was Merrill's looks. She was quite pretty, after all, but what made it worse was that she looked _so_ similar to Arianna. They had the same black hair—Arianna recalled Vadimir mentioning that the two were distantly related—and the same cold-cut features. The only difference was Merrill's blue eyes—maybe Aeres preferred them—and that Merrill had become an adult before Arianna had. In fact, wearing Falon'Din's vallaslin was a decision she'd made in part because Merrill had the same markings, and if Aeres preferred it, she didn't mind at all choosing the same. But it didn't seem to work. Though it wasn't true, Arianna felt that Aeres spent his time between the Keeper-to-be and Tamlen, leaving no time for his heart-broken lethallan.

So Arianna was thinking these thoughts the entire way and moping and briefly wallowing in self-pity when all of a sudden Tamlen yelled, and the largest, most beautiful buck she'd ever seen was leaping off a hill and into her path. She couldn't hear what the two men were barking at her, because she'd drawn her bow on instinct and with her first try, felled the deer dead-center through the heart. It was dead seconds after it hit the dirt. There was silence, then an appreciate whistle from Tamlen (that she ignored), and then Aeres was smiling at her so wide that it seemed to make even her internal organs blush, and he clapped her on the shoulder and said, "That was beautiful, lethallan."

* * *

Everything happened when Tamlen-and-Aeres-and-Arianna were twenty-three.

First it started with Merrill, of course. Arianna couldn't hear what the argument was about, but it seemed to be about something really important, because Aeres actually looked _scared_, and finally Merrill pushed him away from her and uncharacteristically screamed at him.

"No, Aeres!" she cried, balling her magic-sparking fists into tight little balls at her sides. "I'm tired of this! If you're act like we're together because you _want_ to bond with me, then say so; if you're not, _say so_! I'm tired of keeping up this façade. No one will be upset with you if you tell the clan otherwise; it doesn't matter because your father used to be Keeper or anything. You're _scared_, Aeres." Seeing Aeres's shell-shocked face, Merrill softened and reached out to touch his face. "We all love you, lethallin—"

"No," Aeres snarled, smacking her hand away, "you don't. There's only one person who loves me." He stalked away, and unlike Merrill, Arianna carefully followed. He stopped on the very outskirts of camp, at an angle where there weren't scouts posted. Tamlen arrived seconds after, and the two men began speaking in low voices. Arianna felt panic building up inside her: how long had Aeres known her feelings? Why had he not acted on this knowledge? And why would it merit a secretive talk with Tamlen?

Something Tamlen had said seemed to make Aeres stop. Tamlen, thinking he'd calmed his friend down enough, reached out to put his hand on the other man's shoulder. Without warning, Aeres's fist shot out and aimed for Tamlen's surprised face. But Arianna had seen how tense Aeres still was and had predicted the move, so it was Arianna's hand that Aeres caught, not Tamlen's mouth, and once again the two elven men's faces were mirrors of each other, this time in shock.

"Arianna," of course Tamlen was the first to recover, "what are you _doing_?"

"You're welcome, Tamlen," Arianna said sarcastically, wrenching Aeres's fist away.

"I mean…why are you here?"

Arianna spun around to glare icicles at Tamlen and pushed him angrily without thinking. Tamlen pushed her back, both of them like children. Aeres, angry that his shouts of "stop it, you stupid flat-ears" were going ignored, pushed them both, so they ganged up on him. The scouts, of course, heard the noise, and being not far from the area made it just in time to hear violence. And there were enough of them that Aeres recovered to hear the footsteps and ran away, expecting the other two to do the same. But both were too caught up in their dislike of each other, so the scouts found them with Arianna's fist in Tamlen's abdomen and Tamlen's fingers gripped in her hair.

Keeper Marethari was not pleased and informed them that both of them would be going hunting together tomorrow as punishment. Both miscreants knew not to mention Aeres, but neither could stop their mouths from falling open in shock.

"_Together_?" Arianna spat in horror, but Tamlen covered up her rude exclamation.

"But Keeper, we both went hunting yesterday, and besides, Pol and Fenarel are also going tomorrow!"

"We need more food, da'len," Marethari said sternly. "We are moving to the Wending Woods in a few weeks, and we need plenty of supplies for the trip there."

"But that isn't for a few _weeks_—"

"Hush, da'len!" The Keeper's eyes sparked angrily, and both young elves knew the discussion was over. They threw each other visual daggers before storming off to their aravels. Arianna saw Aeres open the flap to the aravel he shared with Tamlen, looking apologetic.

The next morning's punishment started out in silence. An hour in without finding food, a commotion nearly scared the angry pair witless, and suddenly Aeres was standing there with a bow, arrows, and an explanation of how he'd snuck away from carpentry to join them, feeling guilty. So Tamlen-and-Aeres-and-Arianna killed one human as a warning together, and journeyed to find the temple together, and killed spiders together. When they neared the end of the ruin, however, they split up.

Arianna went through one area to search for more spiders and loot and traps to liberate while Tamlen and Aeres went another. She heard combat, and heard Tamlen shout, "Creators, what _was_ that thing?" in a genuinely terrified voice. She ran as fast as she could, but when she found the small room they were in, she didn't know why, but she hid against the doorframe and watched them.

The two men were staring up at a huge stone mirror, and Aeres was trying to push Tamlen away from it, but Tamlen just slapped his friend's hand away like it was an irritating fly. Finally, she heard Aeres's voice crack with terror. "I mean it, Tamlen!" he said loudly. "Stay away from it! I barely got any magical ability from my father, but what I have is telling me that this mirror is…_wrong_."

Tamlen scoffed. "You're not really dragging your father into this, are you?"

"Tamlen! Please!" Aeres's voice was so raw emotion that Tamlen turned, and must have seen something that affected him, because he nodded slowly. "Thank the Creators," Aeres said under his breath as he kissed him.

They were kissing.

Tamlen and Aeres were kissing.

Tamlen and Aeres were suddenly _Tamlen-and-Aeres_, because it was hard to tell whose leather gauntlets was whose and whose blond hair was gripped in elven fingers and whose skin was colliding…

It was _that _Tamlen and _her_ Aeres, and they were _kissing_.

This must have been the reason why she had hidden, because Dirmathen had told her to (she assumed, and now wished she'd taken his vallaslin), which was why she invoked his name as she leapt out of her hiding spot and shrieked, "By the ravens of Dirmathen, what _is_ this?"

There was a muffled curse as the two men wrenched themselves apart, and the lack of stability caused Tamlen to stumble, and he caught onto the glass for support, and instead of safety they all got _hell_.

Something exploded from the mirror, or maybe the mirror itself exploded, but either way, something threw all three elves into the far corners of the room, jarring them into unconsciousness.

_"Can you hear me?"_

She couldn't hear anyone when she woke up, though that was only because no one was in her aravel. When Arianna left, she heard the news from Fenarel: about how she and Aeres were discovered by one of those shem Grey Wardens and that Tamlen was missing and all that. Aeres looked shattered when she found him, even though she was relieved that both of them had been strong enough to survive as long as they did and that their Keeper was strong enough to _keep_ them alive.

But when the Keeper mentioned that they should take Merrill with to go find Tamlen, the name triggered Arianna's memories, and all the confusion she'd had days before suddenly made sense. Aeres looked uncomfortable, to say the least, being with Merrill _and_ Arianna, so the latter assumed that must've been part of the reason why he'd brought the unbiased Fenarel along. They all journeyed to the ruins again, knowing they didn't have much time, because the clan was worried about angry humans and so the trip to the Wood would have to be made earlier.

They saw their first darkspawn on the way, and they were _hideous_, and fear of discovering even more behind locked doors in the temple was Arianna's excuse for not looking for the missing elf very hard. But if she was honest with herself—she was trying not to be—she knew it was because if they found Tamlen, once he was healed, Aeres would have no way of taking back his history with the man, and so any future she could hope for wouldn't be possible. Regardless of how the search turned out, some part of Arianna must've known that that _any_ romantic future with her friend wasn't going to happen, which was probably why she was prowling the ruined halls with a queasy sense of guilt.

So when they stumbled into the Grey Warden in the mirror room, and Aeres was told that _there is nothing you can do for your friend_, Arianna held her tongue and quelled her sense of shame while Aeres wailed, so raw and disbelieving in his grief. And even when he screamed at Duncan and drew his newly sharpened Dar'Missan and Dar'Missu and threw himself at the human with a frightening accuracy even in a rage, Arianna felt only a twinge of guilt as she pried her furious friend away before he could hurt himself, telling him that the _human_ was right. She knew Aeres would never forgive her.

Arianna supposed she deserved it when she was told that she and Aeres were to be Grey Wardens, but she couldn't stop herself from gasping, "Is the clan sending us away?" She argued with the Keeper and the Warden until she found herself conscripted, and even her beloved father agreed with the two middle-aged humanoids, and she felt her now-previous life shatter the way the tainted mirror had when Duncan had sliced it open.

Aeres had said nothing, only that he wanted to stay for Tamlen's funeral.

After the songs were over, Aeres looked at her (though Arianna wasn't sure if she really knew it was _her_) and Aeres the strong, Aeres the admirable looked the youngest and most broken she'd ever seen him. And like a child, he pressed his fist over his heart as he said to her, "I know he isn't gone. I would know. I would know _here_." She didn't say anything, but patted his arm awkwardly.

* * *

Aeres-and-Arianna were twenty-five when everything else happened.

They were Grey Wardens, so lots and lots of things happened like Arianna falling in love with a human and saving a sister clan from werewolves, and a few more things like killing the arch-demon and saving the political and physical country would happen in the future, but on their way to the capital, their history caught up with them.

Both of them had really changed in the two years since they were living with their clan. Aeres had become withdrawn and had snapped at any and all humans who looked at him for more than a second (considering his looks and depressed state, this happened often), but eventually he'd come out of his shell to begin to genuinely enjoy his new companions and to _live_. Arianna had been worried at first, because at first he'd just _thrown_ himself into ending the Blight so that situations like the mirror would never happen ever again, but now that insanity had calmed itself into more like a detached determination separate from his social life. He'd even found himself a lover and friend in the Antivan elf, Zevran, and the two were so content with each other that it made Arianna want to coo with delight.

But you can't run forever, and when you stay in the same place you get caught anyway; you can't win.

Shrieks attacked their camp that night. It was their last night on the road, and Alistair woke the Dalish up and, while they were still trying to get their clothes on, he frantically discussed the dream they'd all had. They'd just equipped themselves when the piercing cries filled the air, and suddenly it was _battle_. It was hard, and bloody, and frightening, and one of the most frightening parts of Arianna's life when one of the _sharlocks_ had pinned her to the ground, crowing with triumph and trying to shred her armor off. Alistair saved her from a fate she didn't want to envision, so she was still shaky enough that she couldn't catch up with Aeres running after an oddly-shaped shriek like the archdemon was on his heels.

By the time she'd gotten to where they had halted, she'd gotten her breath back enough to hear Aeres say in horror, "Creators, Tamlen…Lethallin, please tell me that isn't you!"

Arianna nearly vomited right then. How could she have ever felt dislike towards the pitiful, hairless and tainted creature cowering before her? Because now that Aeres mentioned it, she knew it _was_ indeed Tamlen Mahariel; his skin was mottled and his armor was barely indistinguishable from black moss, but the vallaslin and ears and nose and height and _oh, Creators_ the same blue eyes, glazed with pain and fighting emotion.

"No!" the thing—no, _Tamlen_—croaked, trying to raise an elven hand to shield his face, though the effort of free will seemed to be too much. "Don't…look at me! Aeres, le…lethallin! Kill me! I can't…I can't fight it, the…the song! Kill me!"

Arianna knew he wouldn't. "I can't," Aeres whispered, reinforcing that thought. "Creators, Tamlen, don't make me!"

Tamlen laughed, a dry and painful-sounding thing. "I could…never _make_ you do things, lethallin. Never…But I can't…_I'll_ be made to…kill _you_. I don't…want to!" He shakily moved his arms to his sides, and in that second he seemed to regain enough of himself to look Aeres straight in the eyes, and say in almost the same voice he'd used to have. "I love you, Aeres. Always did. I wish I'd told you."

Aeres drew his dagger, and Arianna couldn't see his face but she thought maybe he'd actually swing the weapon, so she was surprised when he lurched forward and kissed Tamlen. It was even more horrific than the first time she'd seen it, because this time it was just so _heart wrenching_ and pathetic, watching such clean skin cover such disgusting, tainted flesh. It seemed like Aeres hoped his very saliva could cleanse and save Tamlen from his terrible fate. Tamlen seemed to be controlling the urge not to rip Aeres's back to shreds as he fought the archdemon's call, but his moment of freedom had long passed and the efforts were becoming weaker and weaker.

Finally, Arianna could take no more of the sight, as well as fearing for Aeres's safety, and knowing that while Aeres might take back the forgiveness he'd given her for killing Tamlen _again_, and stepping right behind Aeres in a mockery of an embrace, she slid her arm around Aeres's torso and slipped the dagger as deeply as she could push into Tamlen's heart. She'd always been good at finding her mark easily.

As they stood there, they were Tamlen-and-Aeres-and-Arianna like before, only this time they were in the same _world_ together, but its previous perfection was long gone. A third was physically dying, a third was emotionally dying, and a third was perfectly healthy but aching for the other two.

And then it was Aeres-and-Arianna as she wrenched out her knife and Tamlen slid to the ground, and it was sad that finally Tamlen was _really_ out of the picture and it was just the two of them like she'd always hoped, but now she really, really didn't want that anymore.

Arianna released Aeres and hesitantly stepped back, awaiting his rage. To her surprise, he spun around and clung to her, so close she could feel him try not to cry; feel his life shatter again, after he'd worked so hard to pick up the pieces and put them back together.

"Don't even try this time," she murmured into his ear, knowing he knew what she meant. "Let the past go. Live in the present. Make fresh."

She felt him nod as he stepped away, and she saw the fire in his blue eyes. "We're ending this Blight."

"As soon as possible," she agreed solemnly.

Aeres nodded curtly and stalked away, pushing the approaching Alistair and his questions away physically as he marched into his tent. Arianna felt Alistair's arms wrap around her, but she kept her eyes on Tamlen's disintegrating corpse.

"Who was that?" Alistair asked her quietly.

Arianna was silent for a while. "The last reminder of the life we used to have."

She felt Alistair nod sympathetically. "I hate seeing the Blight ruin so many lives like this…whether it's the people who died, or the ones left behind."

Arianna straightened her posture and shrugged reluctantly out of Alistair's grip. "Then let's make sure that we get to the capital as quickly as we can so no one else as to be a ghoul."

She tugged the human back to their tent for much-needed rest, and as they passed Aeres's, she realized that Zevran had retired to his own bedroll for the evening, and that the sounds coming from her fellow Mahariel's tent were muffled sobs of anguish.

Arianna had forgotten that in order to get rid of shattered memories, the cuts their jagged edges had left had to be healed first. And healing takes a long time.

**A/N: Reviewing=good, yes? Yes. Plus, they're fun to write. Go for it.**


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